I’m a little behind in writing about this. I’ve been meaning to address it since it was first announced, but every time I sat down to write about it, I got distracted by something else.

Last Tuesday, the Supreme Court announced that it would decide on District of Columbia v. Heller. In this decision, they said, they would be deciding whether a D.C. statute “violate[s] the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes.”

The importance of this cannot be overstated. In deciding on this issue, the Supreme Court will be considering what very well may be the most important sentence in our Constitution or any of its amendments. The Declaration of Independence said, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The Second Amendment is the amendment that, among other things, helps to ensure our right to defend ourselves, our right to life.

What happens when you take guns from the people? Ask Britain. Far too many people find it far too easy to blame the tool for the evil that its wielder can do, but as the story Kevin quotes (and many, many others like it) proves, taking away guns doesn’t make criminals civilized — it makes law-abiding citizens more tempting victims, since the police, though they try, simply can’t always arrive in time. As the saying goes (sorry I can’t source this; I just know I’ve heard it), “When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.”

Dafydd ab Hugh, at Big Lizards, writes about the actual court case much better than I could:

I believe any fair-minded reading of the Second will lead a judge to agree that “the right of the people” in that amendment means the same as the exact, same phrase in the Fourth Amendment: an individual right held by each individual person. Thus, I believe that we can count on the four fair-minded judges, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, to vote to uphold the circus-court ruling finding the D.C. gun ban “unreasonable and unconstitutional.”

I tend to agree with Dafydd’s assessment that any fair-minded reading of the Second Amendment would lead to the conclusion he reaches, but I’m not nearly as confident that we can trust these judges to find in a fair way, even if they tend to be fair-minded in other decisions. That’s probably just my pessimism talking, though.